music
BY SUZI STEFFEN
How Much Have You Grown?
A Q&A with the Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray
W
hen my sister and brother
started coming home from
church camp in 1991 playing
the fi rst Indigo Girls album incessantly,
I resisted. Then I gave in, after some
discussion. Them: “Did you know they
were lesbians?” Me: “Did you know
they were Christians?” Equal amounts
of disgust there, but we all kept on
listening. Turns out that both Emily
Saliers and Amy Ray kept on producing
albums as well, sometimes together,
sometimes solo. Ray has the stronger
solo career, with her punk sound and
her own record label, and both of them
continue with various forms of activism,
especially focusing on the environment,
Native American rights and issues, LGBT
youth and recovery from disasters like
Katrina.
Ray, a generous interviewee (and
now a self-described “Pagan for Jesus”),
spoke with EW about her career, activism,
the elections and the Indigo Girls fi nding
themselves major-label free.
were brought up with from our parents,
where you engage with your community.
With church and youth camps, we
were learning this whole idea of what’s
happening around you and doing
soup kitchens, homeless shelter work,
AIDS work, environmental work. [As
we became more
successful,] we saw
what we were doing
as a tool to raise
money and bring
people together and
take part in some
community way. If
we weren’t playing
music, we’d still
be engaged in the
activism world. At
this point, activism
gives us energy.
You have a new album coming out this
summer on Daemon Records, right?
Yes, August 5. [Didn’t It Feel Kinder]
is a solo record. The Indigo Girls just
fi nished one too, and it will come out
in January or February. I think I like
this album the best of all the ones I’ve
done. Greg Griffi th produced it. I’d never
worked with a producer in solo projects.
It challenged me and brought me up a
notch. I had free rein to create cool stuff.
With my solo stuff, I have a little baby
solo career, and so I have to really like it;
it has to be a labor of love.
For those who are perhaps new fans,
could you talk about Honor the Earth
(www.honorearth.org)?
HTE is an organization that funds
Native-led environmental action and
also Native groups that do cultural
sustainability. We raise money and give
grants to existing groups that need
money for gas to go to a blockade or for
a recycling program in their community
or doing something big like protesting
uranium mines. We helped start it in
the mid ’90s with Winona LaDuke, and
it has grown beyond me and Emily. We
don’t make decisions or sit on the board;
we’re the mouthpieces or the amplifi ers,
and we use our fan community to build
support.
It seems like you and Emily have felt
a responsibility to a variety of people
and causes. Where do you think that
urge comes from?
I don’t think we feel it as an obligation
in a burdensome way. It was a thing we
Musicians are supposed to be ironic
and cool, but being an activist means
you have to be earnest. How do you
reconcile those demands?
I think you can be ironic and earnest,
actually, at different times, but really, we
just can’t reconcile it. [Emily and I] are
never going to be cool because we don’t
care about that. What we care about
is beyond who’s cool and who’s not,
who’s on the cover of Spin. When you’re
working with the Zapatistas, or you’re in
New Orleans doing a Hurricane Katrina
owned by Disney?
No, we’re not anymore because we
got dropped. We’re happy about it. It was
a good moment for me. I felt like we were
really not happy with that situation. We
liked the people, but on a business level,
they weren’t doing a good job. What’s
going to change? Nothing. Mitchell
Froom was still planning on doing our
new record, and we recorded a record.
It’s mixed; it’s ready to go, but we
wanted to have some time to fi gure out
a business plan. Obviously, we’re going
to stay independent and do it ourselves.
Who are some musicians you’re
listening to right now?
I have a band that I love that I worked
with on my solo record: Arizona. These
guys are awesome. They play this music
that’s like a combination of The Shins
and The Who. They’re super-smart and
nerdy in the best way possible. They’re
coming out with a new record in the fall.
What are your thoughts on November’s
election?
workshop, cool goes out the door. When
Well, we have voter fraud, and we’re
you’re looking at the people who have
run by something that has to do with
lost their houses and their culture, cool
corporations, but I still believe we affect
just goes out the window.
the system, I really do, because I’ve
And we know that we’re queer and
worked on issues and won battles that
these kind of unimaginable women
shouldn’t have been won if the system
who are what we are, and that’s never
was completely in charge. I do believe we
going to go over well in a white straight
can affect change. I have a lot of hope;
male media. Ever. I struggle with it on a
I think Obama could
political level. Why is it
win, and I think he can
so fucked up? Why does
Indigo Girls,
be a great leader, and
it have to be that way? I
Brandi Carlisle
I’m gonna be so relieved
see younger friends who
7 pm Friday, June 27
when George Bush gets
should have access, but
Secret House Vineyards,
out of that White House.
they still don’t. When
Veneta
Obama’s this visionary;
you start talking about
$33 adv., $36 door
if something really bad
that versus activism, the
happened, tons of voter
activism part feels so
fraud and corruption and he wasn’t able
much better than the other part of our
to win, I think people would rise up. He
career. It’s fun, it’s successful, it matters
commands that kind of revolutionary
more than whether you’re on the cover
spirit in people. Obama’s got something
of some magazine or not.
about him that just makes people feel
like they can win, and they’re not going
Can you believe you’re signed to a
to accept anything else.
label (Hollywood Records) that’s
ew
Drinking?
Let us drive!
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EUGENE WEEKLY JUNE 26, 2008 37